


Memento

by brethilaki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Feels, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Scarification, Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 13:37:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/651060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brethilaki/pseuds/brethilaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by this post: http://ticklememisha.tumblr.com/post/41119747453/hollyoakhill-freckledbuttchester-what-if</p><p>"what if cas died in dean’s arms and he had scorched wing marks on his skin for the rest of his life"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memento

The bright dagger misses his heart by an inch, but that only means death will come slower. Cas can already feel his grace spark - projecting the pattern of the bones, on the screen of the skin, of a body that doesn’t belong to him. He falls forward, onto his knees, then onto his hands, blood running down the silver blade and pooling at the hilt like inlaid rubies before it stains the floor in jewel-like drops. He can see Dean’s feet as he grapples with the attacker, watches them dance until his arms give way to fatigue and he slips toward the ground -

\- only to be caught by stronger arms and cradled against a warm chest.

He tries weakly to push him away, but Dean stills his arms, removes the dagger, and presses his jacket to the wound.

“What are you - hold still you dumb - you’re going to bleed out!”

Sam has come barrelling around a corner calling for them but frozen when he saw the scene unfolding and watches now in shocked, solemn silence as Cas coughs and tastes blood.

“Dean. Let go.”  His insides light up again. “Let go of me before I die.”

“No, don’t you… don’t you dare die you sssson of a bitch!”  Panic edges its way in. “Don’t you go anywhere I can’t get you back from. Cas? Cas!”

But Cas, holding on by sheer force of will, flickers again, flares, and goes dark. Dean feels a searing pain across his chest, a growing ache in his heart, and a stinging in his eyes as Cas passes. He buries his head in the back of Cas’s neck and shoulders, not to hide his tears, but to tender him soft kisses not caring if Sam sees. Sam waits, perhaps longer than he should, before cutting in urgently.

“Dean. Dean, we should go.”  His brother looks up at him helplessly, and Sam’s eyes are shining. “We need to get out of here, Dean.”

Dean won’t leave Cas, won’t get go of him for a second and lifts him in his arms as they hurry to the Impala. Light, Dean thinks joylessly, as a feather.

Sam drives, and Dean falls asleep against Cas.

Sam drives until he finds an empty field, choked with weeds, and pulls as far off the road as he can, hiding the car behind a squat tree. He turns to his brother but Dean’s face is peaceful so he waits in silence for him to wake.

Dean stirs, nuzzling Cas’s neck and smiling into his shoulder.

“You stay with me all night, Cas?” His voice trails off as his eyes flutter open and his face hardens and twists with grief.

“Where are we?” he asks, without looking at Sam.

“Somewhere hidden,” Sam says gently. “We… we need to bury Cas.”

“No!” Dean interjects sharply as the first syllables of “bury” fall from Sam’s lips. But he takes a breath and continues with deceptive calmness, “I mean, no. We should burn him,” and his eyes are red when he finally turns to Sam.

A fire will be harder to conceal and is not, Sam thinks, strictly necessary since the remains do not properly belong to Cas.

But he nods, “Of course. I’ll build a pyre,” and leaves Dean alone with the empty vessel.

Dean breaks down immediately, choking on his sobs, touching Cas’s borrowed face and kissing his lips. He wishes he could keep something, something that was really Cas, to stop the memories from fading into darkness. He can imagine no greater darkness, not even - he fingers the palm print on his left shoulder but discovers with panic that it is no longer there. Instead is something broader, rougher, and newer - still sore. Dean understands.

He carries the body deep into the field until he finds Sam setting a mattress of kindling into a bed of logs. Dean lays Cas down gently, folds his hands over his chest, and props his head on his own bloodstained jacket. Then he nods imperceptibly and Sam lights the pyre.

As the flames rise and kiss the corpse everywhere Dean had once done, Dean feels a hole open underneath his heart and imagines throwing himself onto the pyre - but then he would be dead, and still alone.

Instead he traces the drying blood down the front of his t-shirt to the hem, which he grabs and lifts over his head, throwing the shirt to the fire in his stead. Sam watches with a concern that opens into awed horror at what the bare skin reveals: burnt black at places, at places raw and bleeding is the nuclear shadow of a pair of wings, a last momento, and a scar that will never heal.


End file.
